"Good
Tournament", and "Great Final" were nice words
to hear at the end of this event. As a first time GM, I had
some anxiety about doing a good job. I am glad it was well received.
This year the event consisted of two preliminary heats and a
final. The first round on Wednesday had 19 players seated at
three games (6, 7, 6). The second round on Thursday had 15 players
seated at two games (7, 8). The final was held Friday with 8
players. Unfortunately, the first place player from the preliminary
rounds, Mark Giddings, was not among them. On the other hand,
that allowed the 1st alternate, Eric Gundersen to get into the
final as the eighth player.

The results of these games are tallied below. It is interesting
to note that all the games were won by Africa, Iberia, or Babylon
and that Iberia would seem to be the 'best' nation to play.

Nation/Game

1

2

3

4

5

Final

Rank

Africa

3

1

1

6

2

6

3.17

Iberia

6

-

-

3

1

1

2.75

Illyria

-

2

3

-

7

3

3.50

Thrace

2

5

2

4

4

5

3.67

Crete

-

4

-

7

5

4

5.50

Asia

-

-

-

-

-

-

-

Assyria

5

3

5

2

3

7

4.17

Babylon

1

7

4

1

6

2

3.33

Egypt

4

6

6

5

8

8

6.17

This
year, we used the optional rule of allowing the purchase of one
trade card off a trade card pile. This purchase was done as a
separate 'Buy Trade Card' phase following the normal 'Acquire
Trade Card' phase. This rule was in lieu of the standard rule
of allowing the purchase on one trade card off the nine trade
card pile. This rule resulted in many of the calamity cards
coming out every turn.

Also new this year, I used a scoring system that caused some
ambiguity in who was going to get in the final round. The final
rank of all players was determined as a percent of leaders score
plus the average score of the game divided by 1000. Therefore,
it was possible that a person who scored low in a game with a
high average score could get into the final game over a person
who scored high in a game with a low score. My intent was to
prompt the players with high game skills to help the players
with low game skills so that everyone could have a fun game.

The final game was a tough challenge. There were so many
calamities each turn that it was a true fight for survival. In
the first 2/3rds of the game the scores for all the players were
very close. Eventually the calamities began to take their toll
on several nations. Egypt fell out of the race and finished
8th due to being the recipient of barbarian hordes four consecutive
turns. Babylon was hit with multiple calamities two turns in
a row that ended in a stall on the AST. The troubles for Babylon
maxed out when hit with both Civil War and the secondary effects
of Epidemic in the same turn. Even with all its difficulties,
Babylon, played by three-time champ Doug Gallullo, still managed
to come in second. Crete started the game a little slow and
that impacted its position the rest of the game. As I recall,
on one turn the economic power house of Crete cashed in all the
Ochre. The game eventually became a three-way race between Africa,
Iberia and Illyria which was determined on the last round when
Africa and Illyria drew four calamities each while Iberia got
away calamity free. Additionally, Iberia was fortunate enough
to already have most of the Bronze, allowing two sets to be turned
in for the purchase of 810 points of civilization advances on
the last turn. In many of these games, players make classic
statements that add some humor to the event. In the final game,
the Crete player had the quote of the day "I don't mind
getting hit with medicine (but getting hit with Epidemic is another
story)".

As for next year, I look forward to seeing you across the
board when we do it all again.